Timely goal scoring and tremendous goaltending was the recipe for a brilliant Bow Mark Oilers debut.
Captain Joel Krahenbil notched a hat-trick, Ty Tarvyd made 39 saves as the Okotoks Bow Mark AAA Oilers won their first ever regular season game in the Alberta Midget Hockey League in a 4-1 triumph over the Lethbridge Hurricanes Saturday at Pason Centennial Arena.
“It was a solid defensive effort. We all have things to work on, myself included, but if you include the entire game as a whole by the end we kept getting better,” Tarvyd said. “It might not have been the best start, but we hung in there, hung around and when we had chances we made them count.”
Lethbridge had Okotoks on its heels for most of the opening frame and enjoyed six of the first nine minutes on the powerplay with little to show for it.
The Canes finally struck on the man-advantage as Kadyn Chabot finished off a tic-tac-toe backdoor play to give the visitors the 1-0 advantage midway through the second period.
Against the grain the Oilers struck on their first grade A opportunity of the tilt.
Krahenbil was sprung on a shorthanded break and made no mistake, sticking it far side to even the score with 34 seconds left in the middle frame.
“We were killing penalties well all game and my linemate Isaac Benoit fore-checked them really well there and they coughed the puck over,” Krahenbil said. “I was just lucky enough to get the puck there and find my way in.
“All game Tarvyd kept us in there and we finally got that one and from there we found our legs.”
The Oilers shorthanded unit got more action in the final stanza, killing off an early Hurricanes 5-on-3 to set the stage for the game-winner.
Krahenbil again found himself with the puck on a three-on-one advantage with linemates Benoit and Kale Clouston and elected to shoot. The puck trickled off the glove of Hurricane netminder Byron Fancy and into the back of the net with 14:15 left in regulation.
Lethbridge got two more powerplay opportunities, but couldn’t find a way past a determined shorthanded unit led by the unflappable Tarvyd.
“I was just ready to go off the hop for the home opener,” Tarvyd said. “You get the feels, you get the adrenaline pumping and it just makes you want to go all out.
“You could tell a few of the guys might have been a tad nervous for a bit, but everyone turned it into the right energy.”
Oilers winger Hunter Maximnuk put the result to bed through an empty netter with 1:44 remaining. Krahenbil then completed his hat-trick as Lethbridge kept the extra-attacker on the ice.
“I liked the effort we showed on the PK going down for shot blocks and our hustle in the offensive zone,” Maximnuk said. “When you kill off penalties it feels good, everyone on the team thinks ‘we stopped a 5-on-3, we’re building momentum, we got this.’”
Bow Mark goes for its second win in as many days when it hosts the Calgary AAA Flames on Oct.1.
Puck-drop is 4:15 p.m. at Pason Centennial Arena.
“Coming into this I’m pretty sure a lot of teams are going to underestimate us,” Krahenbil said. “This is a pretty big statement win for us to know that we’re here to play this season.”
For more information on the team go to ooaaoilerhockey.ca
